This badly Photoshopped image was inspired by a comment from Corner Stone last night, in which he noted that Trump’s victory speech tableau resembled a Robert Palmer video:

It’s not the fault of Trump’s spouse and female relatives / hangers-on that they seem to form a phalanx of interchangeable backup singers whenever they gather behind the presumptive Republican nominee. But it is funny in an OMG-a-strutting-pageant-maestro-has-a-significantly-lessGREATER-than-zero-chance-of-becoming-POTUS kinda way.

Good Christ, Hillary and Bernie — don’t fuck this up!

We are having a hellacious storm this morning in West Central FL, complete with frequent lightning and sideways rain. One bolt of lightning struck so close that it propelled my hard-sleeping teen from her bed to the hallway before she was even fully awake.

As for me, Imma get more coffee; the adrenaline shot wasn’t sufficient. Open thread!

Since it’s an open thread, I just want to thank the Juicitariat for helping me achieve something most individual vendors on Etsy don’t: I’m within sight of 600 total sales since I started. Celebrating by offering coupon code BALLOONJUICE for 20% off your order,in case anyone needs anything ;)

Also, I got called by a recruiter about a job! Wish me luck, because today is the first day in almost two weeks my bank account has been slightly in the black. I’m hoping the last few weeks the girls are here aren’t so financially tight that we can do a few fun things before they go.

I’m very concerned about the post-primary conversion rate I’m seeing toward Hillary. I’ve managed to peel off a would-be Trump voter (who likely wouldn’t wind up voting anyway to be honest) and I got one of my buddies who was supporting Sanders firmly on the “just vote for Democrats” train. I have a cousin whom I haven’t talked to about the GE explicitly, but seems to have made the jump from Bernie to Hillary on her own.

Still, I’ve got about half Bernie or Busters at the moment, a group of people which I’m not sure whether or not I’m surprised how consistently female it is. At least this is MA. If we were in, say OH, I would hope there would be better odds of helping them see reason.

It’s not like Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for the Presidency of the United States of America. Right, that was just a nightmare? If we democrats fuck this up, I’m moving to Mexico. And will help build the wall.

@Kropadope: A theme I’m starting to notice is that some of the Bernie or Busters are convinced that Clinton is doomed to lose to Trump anyway, so it doesn’t matter how they vote. Data is going to be important.

@Kropadope: First, good on ya for doing God’s work. Second, they may need a little time for the election results to sink in. If they’re still planning to sit out the election after Bernie concedes and exhorts his supporters to vote for Clinton (this WILL happen, I’m convinced) and after Trump stinks up the joint with his unique combination of obnoxious self-regard, racism, sexism and xenophobia, then it’s time to worry.

Relax everyone. While there are certainly no guarantees and no end of surprises in this world, it might help you to ask yourself the same question Obama asked: What is behind his recent surge in popularity?

As always, keep an eye on state-by-state general-election polling. In last couple of election cycles, national polls through most of the cycle had a modest bias toward the Republicans that is still unexplained, but properly aggregated state polling was dead on. It may just be easier to deal with demographic sampling biases when polling is chunked by states.

Remember that Chris Cilizza 270towin map: to beat Trump, all Hillary Clinton needs to do is hold the deepest-blue states that are almost certain Democratic wins, plus Florida. Or, if she can’t hold Florida, she can win with Virginia and Ohio. Or, just one of either Virginia or Ohio (and Virginia looks pretty solid to me), plus a couple of smaller likely Dem states like Nevada, Iowa or New Mexico. These are all outcomes that are way worse than where she’s currently standing in recent state polling.

Trump, like any Republican in 2016, needs to practically run the table of every state where he’s even remotely competitive. I’d like to run up the score against him to take as much of Congress as possible, but it’s not necessary to keep him out of the White House.

And he’s starting from way behind. Trump’s seemingly effortless destruction of all of his Republican competitors was reflected in opinion polling almost from the moment he announced his candidacy. We don’t see that in the general election polling. It’s not the same situation.

On Morning Blow, Joe and former RNC Chair Michael Steele were predicting that if Obama actively campaigns for Hillary (or Bernie), it would help rather than hurt daTrump because Trump appeals to those angry and distrustful of the current Ivy-League educated elite (e.g. Joe: “it’s no accident that in 1980 the voters elected someone graduating from Eureka College (Reagan)”) instead of the Washington experts. In the sense that Trump may appeal to working-class whites in traditionally blue-leaning upper mid-western states, there may be something to this possibility, but it overlooks that what Obama brings to the table for Clinton or Sanders is his ability to motivate non-white turnout in swing states. Most of the voters Trump will appeal to weren’t going to vote D anyway and hadn’t done so in past elections either.

@efgoldman: I hear you. I expect once my shock wears off, I will pivot to full battle mode and adopt a take no prisoners attitude. But seriously man, Donald Fcking Trump is the Republican nominee and I’m still listening/reading shit about Sanders being the one true answer. What a dismal joke, math really is hard.

@cmorenc:
And the intern killer would never try to steer the Dems into the ditch so it must be true. Next I am sure he will recommend that Bill also remain out of sight because he would be bad for Dems.

@amk: You can actually say some things based on national polling, at least if you do enough aggregation to not be distracted by anomalies like Rasmussen. Sam Wang wrote all about it here: just looking at historical performance of national polls at this stage of the game suggests that Trump has a 9% chance of winning. Which I guess you could chalk up to the probability of some kind of game-changing catastrophe. But state polls are better.

I woke at 4:30 am (California time); lay awake for half an hour thinking depressed, mean thoughts, and finally decided to get up and make coffee, ferChissake. The NYT confirms that Trump’s win in Indiana was not an evil dream. Crap. On my FB page last night someone I thought had better sense was posting an insane right wing video about Hillary Clinton, which caused me to lose my temper. (Righteously. Believe whatever tomfoolery you like, but don’t bring that s*** into my house.)

Any genuine patriots on the Republican side must be feeling worse than I am. They know DT is a disaster for the country. But they’ve been turning HRC into a demon in human skin for 25 years. They can’t support her now without looking like charlatans and/or fools. Tough for them.

OTOH, as good friends remind me, the country’s been through worse. It’s not 1860.

@amk: Also, the list of important swing states may change. I expect a lot of people to look at close numbers in Ohio and fret, because they’re accustomed to thinking of Ohio as a must-get swing state, Florida as this notoriously uncertain battleground, and, say, Virginia as a nice bonus you might win if you’re doing really well. But this year, Virginia and Florida look more solid than Ohio, and North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona look gettable.

Once you get past a moment of panic at having to face this unpredictable, offensive, stupid loose cannon of a GOP nominee in November…you start to embrace the joy that is facing this unpredictable, offensive, stupid loose cannon of a GOP nominee in November.

It’s not that Trump has no chance, I’m not being dumb or naive. But ask yourselves, “Which party would you rather be right now?” My GOP-supporting friends and relatives are, at best, resigned to having this clown as their public face and they’re hoping the damage is not too severe. At worst, they know this is the end of their party and/or adamantly will not support Trump.

Speaking of Reince and his tweet spelling of “presumptive” I can’t help but notice the head of their party makes the same spelling mistakes as every RW, suburban and exurban commenter on my local news blogs.

I saw Reince on the CBS morning show with Gayle and Norah, and he looked dazed.

They – the Establishment – genuinely can’t believe it has come to pass. The shameful thing is, most of them will still come to support Trump. We have to point out their utter lack of principles at every opportunity. (I have no doubt HRC will!)

Btw did Gayle or Norah bother to ask Reince what happened to that “deep bench”? I would have, but then again I’m mean like that.

@Kropadope:
Given the hot buttons that motivate them to vote that is a hell of a challenge. How would you suggest we do that? Short of embracing racist, sexist, xenophobic anger I am not sure how you get their attention. (as an old white cis guy those people are still a mystery to me). We have shown the failures of the GOP way, we have highlighted how the Dem way would benefit them and their response is to not believe us because we are tax and spend, liberal, ni**er-loving red diaper babies.

Maybe instead of blaming white men for being assholes, we could spend more time helping them see where their interest lies.

Speaking as a middle aged white man, I am not an asshole. In fact, most of the white men I know aren’t assholes. Nothing I said could possibly be disparaging of white men. Everything I said is disparaging of people who think the only people who matter are middle aged white men.

As far as helping them see where their interests lie, and speaking here only of Trump supporters who largely are in fact white, I have only 2 words for them: Grow up. Considering their ages tho, I’ll save my breath.

Reaching out to my closest swing state office (NV) to see how I can help on their ground game.

YES!

Reading and commenting here is fun; doing some GOTV…wait…doing a LOT of GOTV is what will actually help the Democrats win and win big this fall. Living in an actual swing state, I’m looking forward to turning/keeping VA just as dark blue as possible this year!

@Chris: I was watching Ted’s father during the concession speech. His face showed a weird mixture of heartbreak that the horrible heathen had snatched his son’s victory, but also a religious optimism that they would try and try again.
These people never quit. In their minds they know they have serious work to do. They’ll be back.

The “Reagan Democrats” who became (and stayed) dependably Republiklown from 1968 into the 1980s were largely blue-collar members of major unions, who broke organizationally with the Democrats publicly over Vietnam, and then without public acknowledgement over civil rights, which included affirmative action for minorities for union jobs, especially the public safety unions and the building trades.

Hello gang. Back from wanderings (St. Louis and Baltimore).
Good luck Satby!
And don’t fret LAO. I think the biggest factor in this race will be the HUGE lack of funding for Trumpelstiltsken’s campaign. Yes, the Republican Party faithful will get back in line because that is how they are programmed.
But the wallets will not open. Look for a bunch of articles comparing the Cleveland convention to the Brazil Olympics.
Seriously, who is going to fund the RNC and the necessary ground game?

Jesus, Joe Scarborough. Donald Trump went to Wharton, a/k/a the University of Pennsylvania, member of the Ivy League. My sister knew Ivanka there. A friend of mine taught Donald Jr. there.

To be fair, that’s not necessarily a contradiction. FDR was a scion of the same American aristocracy that he was rhetorically tearing to pieces in his speeches, he was plenty popular with the regular joes who disliked it. You don’t have to be an average Joe to appeal to them, even against your own background.

Peggy may have been the one who taught Reince to pour some Bailey’s on his cereal…in fact, I’m quite sure of it.

Breakfast of champions? Come to think of it, when I watch Peggy’s interviews I get flashbacks to an upperclass, very dignified but completely alcoholic woman I worked with many years ago. The same long pauses, the same facial expression…
Is it Charlie Pierce who said he always sees little birds flying around her head?

@Chris: True, but it’s rich (in both senses) to have a millionaire son of a millionaire, an Ivy Leaguer whose children are also Ivy Leaguers, being allowed to depict himself as the champion of jus’ folks.

@Kropadope: How do we do this? Polling suggests that Trump supporters have above median incomes so they may not be the demographic suffering from the bad economy left us by W. I would suggest to you that this support is made up of pretty much nothing but racists, homophobes, xenophobes, and misogynists. What Democratic party platform planks would you suggest be included to bring these folks into the fold?

I mean, yes, in that this is Trump and he has no more intention of championing jus’ folks than anyone else in his party. But as a general principle? Why? Was it rich for Teddy or Franklin Roosevelt to do the same thing, or Jack Kennedy?

To quote a fun if overrated movie, you don’t have to be a man of the people to be a man for the people.

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 5/3/16GOP voters eject Cruz, reject establishment for Trump
Rachel Maddow and an MSNBC panel react to Ted Cruz suspending his campaign for president and what it means for the Republican Party that Donald Trump now apparently has an unobstructed path to the Republican nomination

@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Like I said, hard work and patience. I wish I had a better answer, but sometimes there is no immediate gratification. Being the party of good governance will eventually pay off. These people (and they’re not all men) aren’t angry that they’re losing or even necessarily that others are catching up, they’re mad that the lead car is allowed to put up obstacles that are pushing them back rather than good racers to advance.

The Democrats produce better results for everybody and few people can ignore that forever. As far as the people who do manage to ignore it forever, their children won’t. Look at New England. There’s no reason to believe that white people, even older white men, are lost to the Democrats forever. I think a key piece to this is the income inequality issue and, while some people will pooh-pooh it, this is an issue where public policy can make a measurable difference for all people.

Trump Spells Doom for Social Conservatives
APRIL 29, 2016 3:20 PM EST
By Francis Wilkinson
The 2016 Republican presidential campaign began last year with Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum — among others — flashing Bible passages and competing for support from social conservatives in Iowa. It will end in July with the all but certain nomination of Donald Trump.

The rout of social conservatives in this campaign is absolute. Their future looks grim.

The problem isn’t that Trump has a disco ball where his moral compass should be. It’s that he isn’t particularly interested in the social conservative agenda — or even in pretending that he is.

Aside from a few comic forays into biblical scholarship early in his campaign, and later comments about abortion that were so off message that they merely confirmed his lack of interest in the topic, Trump is running free and clear of the entire movement. He’s leaving social conservatives in the dust.

Indiana leaves Trump in control as Cruz exits stage right
05/04/16 08:00 AM—UPDATED 05/04/16 08:15 AM
By Steve Benen
On April 5, one month ago tomorrow, Ted Cruz easily won the Wisconsin presidential primary, leading the Texas senator to declare that the race for the Republican nomination was on an entirely new trajectory.

Indeed, a month ago, there were certain things much of the political world simply accepted as fact. Everyone knew there would be a contested GOP national convention. Everyone knew Cruz’s advantage at state conventions was likely to pay dividends. And everyone knew the Texan was in this for the long haul.

A lot can happen in a month.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz ended his presidential campaign on Tuesday after failing to top Donald Trump in the Indiana Republican primary.

“From the beginning, I’ve said that I would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory,” Cruz told supporters at an election night rally in Indianapolis. “Tonight, I’m sorry to say it appears that path has been foreclosed.”
The senator’s campaign went all out to win Indiana – a state Team Cruz saw as friendly territory, and where polls showed him ahead a month ago – but he ended up losing by nearly 17 points. Cruz could have turned the next couple of months into some kind of vanity exercise, dragging out the process unnecessarily, but given the arithmetic, the Texan no longer saw the point of waging a fight with a predetermined outcome.

people have been saying Trump has “no chance” for a year now. and at every step of the way, nay-sayers have been completely wrong.

maybe it’s time to recalibrate your political senses?

And during that whole time, Trump was leading in the Republican primary polls. Usually leading by a massive margin. Everyone had to some up with some kind of special-pleading just-so story about how he somehow doesn’t get the nomination.

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 5/3/16The path to ‘President Trump’ turns GOP plan on its head
Steve Kornacki shows how Donald Trump will likely pursue a general election strategy of winning upper-Midtwest industrial states with large white populations rather than follow the Republican plan devised after their 2012 loss that looked to expand the party’s appeal to Latino voters.

Yesterday was the superest and worst Tuesday yet, as Indiana took the stage. Without exaggeration, we can tell you that the whole world ended and you’re reading this from some weird, disappointing afterlife.

After last nights results I was vowing to take a long vacation from anymore politics. But yet , here I am. Fuck, so Sanders squeaked out a win, which means this is all gonna drag out some more, more ‘contested convention’ chest-thumping and all. Why, oh why, couldn’t it have been over last night?
And speaking of being over. Jesus, didn’t Cruz fold up like a cheap suit. And his concession speech was a miracle of bile and bitterness. How America is a blasted hell-scape, Obamas completely shredded the Constitution, etc. But, by cracky, you won’t have Cruz around to save you anymore.

@efgoldman: Rasmussen is unusually bad, but it’s actually a more general rule: don’t pay attention to stories about individual polls unless you have no better option. It’s early in the general-election cycle and sometimes we have no better option, but the firehose of data is starting up.

If some poll is getting a lot of attention, it usually means it’s an unusual or shocking result. So if you pay attention to high-profile news stories about polls, it means you’re effectively cherry-picking polls that are way off expectations, which are usually outliers.

When there are a lot of polls, averaging them all together tends to reduce the error in the aggregate, but the chance of finding a really weird-looking result or an error that fits your specific agenda actually increases. So poll aggregates get better, but cherry-picked SHOCK POLL stories get worse.

I realize you guys are pretty wrapped up in the primary/election shenanigans, but I wonder if there has been any mention of the giant wildfire in Alberta, Canada that has caused the evacuation of a city of +60,000 people? Looks like over six hundred homes already destroyed with the worst possibly to come today as high winds and +32 deg C [in the 90s for Americans] temperatures continue. No injuries reported at all! Thank dog.
I worked up in that area [yes, that is where the oil sands are] and to think that this is happening in May(!!) is unbelievable to me. Another piece of anecdotal evidence that the climate is changing, and very rapidly. This could be a preview of the near future.

@NorthLeft12: I saw a brief blurb about it on the front page of the NYT. There was no indication (without clicking through, anyway) about how many people were affected — I got the impression it was some godforsaken little town in the middle of nowhere. I hope everyone gets out safely and that the damage is minimal. Scary stuff.

Got an inexplicable urge to go wallow in some shit last night and took at trip over to RedState. So worth it. Reading the outrage and butthurt, and knowing that in spite or their caterwauling, that every single last one of those dumb fucks will get in line and vote for Trump in November.

I appear to be losing my grip. I was driving home from the gym and heard Sanders on the radio saying, “Secretary Clinton appears to think this race is over. Well I have some bad news for her.” And suddenly I was screaming “Fuck you, Bernie” at my radio.

@Iowa Old Lady: I am thinking of declaring a moratorium on politics — means I’ll miss most of the posts here — but it’s just become sensory overload. It’s also making me hold grudges — and I’m the kind of un-nice person that holds a grudge until it dies and then has it stuffed and mounted so I can still look at it. Not good for my blood pressure.

I just had a very scary thought. Very scary. Now that we know that Trump will be the Republican nominee, doesn’t that mean at some point he will get security briefings? Holy Hannibal Batman! Even if the man loses the general he’s still getting some information I never, ever want him to have.

@Emma: Glad to know. Need to remember so as not to get on your bad side (see posts with Raven … )

AS for lighting – never care until it jumps from my outlets.

Trump’s soon to be endless over-the-top stupidity isn’t something any of us are prepared for; less so the stupidity of supporters – had to walk away from a anti-Hillary nut-bag as he (of course) waxed on about Hillary needing to be in jail for her e-mail. Total delusional about bush-wack in the cheney admin and their outing a real CIA operative doing ultra critical secret work on weapons of mass destruction (the real ones) but I am realizing that a large segment of the amerikan people are just so stupid that their ability to exist makes me wonder how evolution allowed such total dumb ass’s to survive long enough to produce such off-spring.

@RoonieRoo:
There was some discussion of this yesterday, with input from our own Dr Silverman. As I understand the gist, it was: Yes, nominees and a few of their top advisers are customarily briefed. But they’ll be told what they may or may not discuss in public, and warned about consequences for any violations.

@Kropadope: Worth remembering that the PUMAs seemed like a legitimate force leading up to the conventions back in ’08. No excuse for slacking/concessions/wrangling but I think the Democrats will have their shit together this year. Seems like an entirely different universe than 12 years ago.

@RoonieRoo: Some discussion of this last night, with the consensus being that he won’t get that info until after the convention. Not good, particularly since Putin’s agent is running Trump’s campaign now, but not an immediate issue.

Trump’s soon to be endless over-the-top stupidity isn’t something any of us are prepared for; less so the stupidity of supporters

I’m perfectly prepared for it. Sarah Palin wasn’t long ago, and the teabaggers and their preferred media have collectively been saying exactly this kind of gobbledegook for eight years. And yes, all of it is profoundly fucking stupid. But what else is new?

Yeah, I’m optimistic, cautiously so, but I think we mostly have our shit together. (This includes the acrimonious primary, by the way. Primaries are supposed to be that way. But polling numbers indicate that most of us are down with whichever of the two ends up being the nominee, and I can’t imagine that the prospect of a Trump presidency wouldn’t motivate our voters).

Jesus, didn’t Cruz fold up like a cheap suit. And his concession speech was a miracle of bile and bitterness.

Not only that, but America got to watch on live TV as he (accidentally) punched and elbowed his own wife in the head, fresh on the heels of him nonchalantly watching Carly take a fall off-stage and do nothing. What a day he had, eh? That Karma, she’s sure something…

It’s been a bad storm morning here in Bartow/Mulberry, I will tell you that.

My take on Trump: we’re looking right now at a candidate whose unfavorables among Hispanics, Blacks, and Women make him the least-popular formal nominee of a major party in AGES, if not ever.

Trump has campaigned so publicly and so visibly on hateful ideas that any attempt by him or the GOP to “pivot” to the Moderate voters would be a joke. The meme of “Trump’s Wall” by itself is so clearly an anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican rant that there is no way most Hispanics will back Trump or the Republicans (there’s polling that shows Trump is costing Republican support among CUBAN-AMERICANS in Florida: that’s never happened in over 40-plus years among a voting population that’s never forgiven JFK and the Dems over all the Cuba crises).

Here’s the thing: this is no time to crow or celebrate the Republicans’ likely collapse this November. Voter turnout is still a must: the GOP suppression efforts are real and need to be countered by a large-scale turnout of Progressive and Moderate voters.

We ALL have a mission now: Stop Trump. Stop this amateurish demagogue of a bully from getting anywhere near the Oval Office. It’s a moral imperative. There’s no question about Trump being the worst possible Presidential candidate, someone with no honest temperament to respect the duties of the office or represent the true needs of the people.

Get the vote out, people. Volunteer this summer and fall for the Democratic campaigns. Keep it up, keep the voters energized and ready to vote.

Stop Trump. RISE UP AND DEFEND THIS NATION IN ITS DARKEST HOUR. So that future generations can look back and say “THIS, was their Finest Hour.”

After O’Reilly objected, “But his platform will be conservative. What he presents will be conservative.” Krauthammer countered, “You and I know that a platform doesn’t mean a damn thing. what has he been saying, what has he been advocating? that’s what counts. And there’s a second issue, is his fitness for office. It’s a matter of temperament, and up until now he’s not impressed me with his temperament. … I think you have to ask yourself, do I want a person of that temperament to control the nuclear codes, and as of now, I’d have to say no.”

I love that Krauthammer’s admitting party platforms don’t mean diddly-squat.

I LOVE that he notes Trump’s fitness-for-office problem – we know it, of course, but it’s excellent to see even howling GOP throwbacks like CK noting it. There will be others, and it’ll make for great ads.

(there’s polling that shows Trump is costing Republican support among CUBAN-AMERICANS in Florida: that’s never happened in over 40-plus years among a voting population that’s never forgiven JFK and the Dems over all the Cuba crises)

They don’t blame Eisenhower for “losing Cuba,” but they’ll blame his successor for not taking it “back.” Go figure.

Good article. Social conservatives are leaving themselves in the dust, imo. They are fighting a losing battle. Americans are just not going to become more socially conservative, more regressive, more exclusive as time goes on but less.

Not only do we need to stop Trump at all costs but we need to take advantage of this opportunity to run up the score in the House and Senate.

This is why we cannot allow the media to have a contested convention on our side. They will exploit that no end and right now it is in our interest to appear to be organized, competent, unified, functional, and all the other reassuring qualities we can muster.

@Betty Cracker: Yes, Fort MacMurray is the name of the city, and it is understandable that most might think it is only a few hundred or a few thousand people. When I worked there as a student in 1977/78 there were about fifteen thousand people there. The population fluctuated wildly depending on the Oil Sands industry health. There are probably a lot less people there now than there would have been a year or so ago. The drop in oil price has hit this area very hard.

This is why we cannot allow the media to have a contested convention on our side. They will exploit that no end and right now it is in our interest to appear to be organized, competent, unified, functional, and all the other reassuring qualities we can muster.

Meh. In the worst case, if Bernie’s vanity demands a “contested convention” it will consist of one vote. He’ll lose it, and that will be that.

Clinton is 181 delegates away from cinching the nom. Bernie still needs more than 900.

well, imagine you’re the head of the RNC and then donald trump of all people performs an easy hostile takeover of your entire political party. easy. trump didn’t even have to try very hard or spend much of anything and he wrapped it up in early may.

@oldgold: Mika’s role as the Token Alan-Colmes-With-Boobs is to come off as a subpar strawman and occasionally cluck her tongue at mean ol’ liberals while routinely nodding at her Big Man’s pronunciations.

@FlipYrWhig: I think there are way more people excited by Trump than were excited by Palin, and for longer. From when she was picked by McCain to when the bloom was off the skunk was really just a few months. Trumps been in the public eye a lot longer and his appeal is more enduring.

SoCons just aren’t the hot shit they think they are, and IMO never were even at the height of their power.

I keep going back to this observation I made back when I was dabbling in the campus religious life back in college; in every fundamentalist group, there’s a non-trivial percentage of people who are just along for the ride, who identify with the group purely on cultural (or racial, though that was less of a thing on an East Coast city campus) level or as a social club, but aren’t crazy about all the rules or the true believers who follow them.* They’re Republicans, and they’re bigots who believe along tribal lines that their identity group is better than the others, but they fundamentally don’t give two shits about Charles Darwin or homeschooling or masturbation being a sin. And while they’ll endure the Sunday sermons from the pastor, bless his heart, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’d be comfortable with him being put in the White House and having the power to actually police the nation.

So in primary after primary, the SoCons put up an icon of Christian fundamentalist virtue – Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Pat Robertson – only to find out that his support’s a lot less than they thought it was. (It’s worth noting that the only time they got one of theirs into the White House, George W. Bush, “theirs” was also the candidate of the East Coast elite/establishment). And that most voters, including a sizable chunk of their congregations, are quietly pulling the lever for one of the guys who’d give them the same tribal/bigotry rush without the endless God-bothering.

And we just saw this played out again, where despite Cruz being the ostensible candidate of the religious right, Trump, who doesn’t have a religious bone in his body but appeals to most of the same cultural markers, did very well among evangelical voters and absolutely killed in the South (supposedly the most devout region in the country).

* Not that liberal denominations don’t have “cultural Christians” or people who disagree with the consensus, but in their case it’s out in the open, because they don’t generally consider their way to be unquestionably right in all things and every deviation from it to be an automatic heresy. With the conservatives, it’s all underground.

Just wondering what that last minute headline grabbing Tump /Enquirer linkage of Cruz’s father to the Kennedy assassination might have had on the voters. Used to be that it was improper to throw out smears just before the votings.